Careening Wildly
Christina
Frustration. Irritation. Exhilaration. (And I admit maybe a little delirium at the end.)
I couldn’t quantify it. I certainly couldn’t qualify it. So instead, I submerged myself in the tumultuous emotions that mercilessly hurdled at me. In the height of the moment, tears threatened to run down my cheeks and an unabashed scream teetered precariously at the verge of my mouth.
“Deep breath,” I mentally reminded myself for the five hundred thousandth time, muttering a brief prayer under my breath instead.
“Please Lord, let this physics roller coaster project work. We’ve been working on it for over twenty hours now, and I could really use a miracle right now. Amen.”
And I know... I know. It’s silly: both the act of praying in a secular moment like this and the trivial content of my prayer. I guess that’s why my prayer didn’t come to fruition in the end, and so the struggle continued.
I devised a plan; albeit, a cheesy one to uplift our dejected spirits. We would say a compliment each time that our marble failed to travel the entire course of the roller coaster ride.
“Celina, I like your puns. You’re very punny...”
“Hillary, you’re the nicest person that I know. ”
“Lauryn, you’re one of my closest friends ever since elementary school.”
I’d never heard so many compliments in my life before, and ironically, all I wanted was to end this steady exchange of positivity. After all, the more compliments that we shared meant the more failures that we had experienced.
In retrospect, I can only imagine that this entire experience was a test of my patience. And I guess it worked. Believe me when I say that my patience was running low, perhaps even depleted.
But the following day, I was back at it again. Face-to-face with my worst enemy: a daunting 2 feet by 2 feet by 3 feet peg board contraption that taunted me with the words “I dare you.” (I told you I was delirious at this point.)
Still, our ball kept veering off the tracks or halting in its motion midway through the course. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong. So rather than staring at the sad failure that was supposed to be our rollercoaster, I started tearing things down. One by one, the peg board, vertical loop, steep decline, and elevator all disappeared. I was back at square one, but sometimes, I realized that I needed to take a step back to see the bigger picture or to find an alternative solution. And needless to say, I desperately yearned for clarity.
I pursued an entirely different course this time with no elevators, but an abundance of funnels instead. And a whopping six hours later, it was complete. Inconsistent but complete.
The coaster had a success rate of about 75%, which meant that for every four runs, our marble would fail to complete the track at least once. This situation was not ideal, but I admit, I was relieved to have built a working roller coaster at all. Progress was progress, regardless of its shape or form, and I wasn’t about to let a little inconsistency dampen my jubilation.
And over the course of the week, I refined my design further, spending hours upon hours gingerly tweaking the track and pouring my soul into the project until the final in-class assessment was upon us.
Fortunately, we were successful in building a viable rollercoaster course; however, much like the marble traveling through the undulations of the track, my own emotions careened from wildly frustrated to joyfully triumphant. And with this project completed, I can’t help but feel as if I’ve passed this test of my patience, and consequently, I have risen from this challenge, not only unscathed, but better than ever before.
*** While this project occurred a few months ago and this article is long overdue, I’ve decided to post it anyways since for me, it serves a constant reminder that things don’t always go as expected.
Frustration. Irritation. Exhilaration. (And I admit maybe a little delirium at the end.)
I couldn’t quantify it. I certainly couldn’t qualify it. So instead, I submerged myself in the tumultuous emotions that mercilessly hurdled at me. In the height of the moment, tears threatened to run down my cheeks and an unabashed scream teetered precariously at the verge of my mouth.
“Deep breath,” I mentally reminded myself for the five hundred thousandth time, muttering a brief prayer under my breath instead.
“Please Lord, let this physics roller coaster project work. We’ve been working on it for over twenty hours now, and I could really use a miracle right now. Amen.”
And I know... I know. It’s silly: both the act of praying in a secular moment like this and the trivial content of my prayer. I guess that’s why my prayer didn’t come to fruition in the end, and so the struggle continued.
I devised a plan; albeit, a cheesy one to uplift our dejected spirits. We would say a compliment each time that our marble failed to travel the entire course of the roller coaster ride.
“Celina, I like your puns. You’re very punny...”
“Hillary, you’re the nicest person that I know. ”
“Lauryn, you’re one of my closest friends ever since elementary school.”
I’d never heard so many compliments in my life before, and ironically, all I wanted was to end this steady exchange of positivity. After all, the more compliments that we shared meant the more failures that we had experienced.
In retrospect, I can only imagine that this entire experience was a test of my patience. And I guess it worked. Believe me when I say that my patience was running low, perhaps even depleted.
But the following day, I was back at it again. Face-to-face with my worst enemy: a daunting 2 feet by 2 feet by 3 feet peg board contraption that taunted me with the words “I dare you.” (I told you I was delirious at this point.)
Still, our ball kept veering off the tracks or halting in its motion midway through the course. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong. So rather than staring at the sad failure that was supposed to be our rollercoaster, I started tearing things down. One by one, the peg board, vertical loop, steep decline, and elevator all disappeared. I was back at square one, but sometimes, I realized that I needed to take a step back to see the bigger picture or to find an alternative solution. And needless to say, I desperately yearned for clarity.
I pursued an entirely different course this time with no elevators, but an abundance of funnels instead. And a whopping six hours later, it was complete. Inconsistent but complete.
The coaster had a success rate of about 75%, which meant that for every four runs, our marble would fail to complete the track at least once. This situation was not ideal, but I admit, I was relieved to have built a working roller coaster at all. Progress was progress, regardless of its shape or form, and I wasn’t about to let a little inconsistency dampen my jubilation.
And over the course of the week, I refined my design further, spending hours upon hours gingerly tweaking the track and pouring my soul into the project until the final in-class assessment was upon us.
Fortunately, we were successful in building a viable rollercoaster course; however, much like the marble traveling through the undulations of the track, my own emotions careened from wildly frustrated to joyfully triumphant. And with this project completed, I can’t help but feel as if I’ve passed this test of my patience, and consequently, I have risen from this challenge, not only unscathed, but better than ever before.
*** While this project occurred a few months ago and this article is long overdue, I’ve decided to post it anyways since for me, it serves a constant reminder that things don’t always go as expected.
Comments
Post a Comment